PHOTO-NAT NEWS
June 2007
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PHOTO-NAT NEWS |
June 2007 |
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PHOTO-NAT WEB SITE BACK ONLINE Sometime in early March, without a hint of warning, the Photo-Nat Web Site was swept into a Black Hole of the vast universe of Cyber Space. The cause of this disappearing act was due to the fact that our web site host, 9esolution, shut down their business and left us stranded. Maybe this departure was actually a blessing. Over the last year or so, support from our estranged host was getting rather thin and many of our concerns were being ignored. I won’t bore you with the details, but I believe this dissolution will be good in the long run. We now have a new host, Plutomic Hosting. The new host claims their biggest asset is customer satisfaction and promise that their customer’s problems are their problems. And I must say, so far, I am very satisfied with the service. Although Plutomic will cost us a bit more than 9esolution (when it seems too good to be true, it probably is), we now have better customer service, smoother, faster connections, minimum down time and five times the storage space. What this means to Photo-Nat is that we have room to expand our web site. We can handle many more member galleries, and more member submissions. I urge members to become a part of the web site by submitting photos for our gallery, supply submissions for our news and events, submit suggestions, or provide articles of interest. Please feel free to send any of these by email to photonatcom@gmail.com . For information regarding Member Gallery submissions, please see submission guidelines. |
TESTING PROCEDURE FOR SLR CCD SENSOR Photo-Nat’s guest speaker in March was Camera Repair Expert, Douglas Banks. Doug is always a wealth of information when it comes to camera maintenance and repairs. Doug Banks Photo Equipment Repairs offers a CCD and Cleaning Service and his web site is at http://www.photographicrepairs.com.For those of you who a brave enough to tackle CCD cleaning themselves, one of the better guidelines web sites is http://www.cleaningdigitalcameras.com One of Doug’s topics was about the infamous dust bunnies that cling to our CCD sensors of our DSLRs. He provided us with a procedure to test DSLR CCD sensors. The following is a procedure using Photoshop, but you can convert the guidelines to just about any photo editing software: 1. Take a photo at F/22 of a clear blue sky or gray wall. 2. Open up photo in Photoshop. 3. Click on “View” then click “Actual Pixels” (100% view). 4. Click on “Image” and then click “Mode” then click “GrayScale”. 5. Click on “Image” then click “Adjustments” then click Brightness/Contrast”. 6. Decrease “Brightness” and increase “Contrast”. 7. As you slide the bars you can see the different types of dust and debris on the sensor. 8. Faint spots are like dried moisture spots and dark spots are actual dust or dirt particles.Doug Banks Photo Equipment Repairs offers a CCD and Cleaning Service and his web site is at http://www.photographicrepairs.com. For those of you who a brave enough to tackle CCD cleaning themselves (at your own risk), one of the better web sites describing the procedure is: http://www.cleaningdigitalcameras.com |
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Court Noxon Provides Us with a Great Wildflower Web Site Our guest speaker in May, Court Noxon gave us a fantastic presentation on Prince Edward County wildflowers. Court is the author of Field, Forest Hedgerow - A hiker's wildflower guide for Prince Edward County ($24.95. ISBN 0-9731868-0-1). The book is 126 pages containing 225 species of wildflowers and 337 colour photographs. Court also has a great web site http://www.wildflowers-pec.on.ca/ with many more images. For more information on Court Noxon, check out Terry Sprague's article at www.naturestuff.net. |
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Field, Forest Hedgerow
A hiker's wildflower guide for
Prince Edward County.
The purpose of this book is to identify the flowers, plants, and trees commonly encountered in Prince Edward County at the beginning of the 21st century, in order to establish a benchmark for changes occuring because of weather, changing agricultural practices, and urban development. As there are many distinctly varied ecological environments within the County the information included is relevant for much of the neighbouring limestone areas of Southeastern Ontario.
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| DIGITAL IMAGE PREPARATION FOR SHOW & TELL Show & Tell is a very important part of our Photo-Nat meetings. This gives members the opportunity to share their work with others, request feedback if desired and provide members with hints, ideas, and insights. It's a great way to share and learn. In the past, we simply brought in our slides and the projectionist displayed our work on the big white screen. However, with digital age being dropped on us at an alarming rate, we now have the ability to show our images digitally using computer technology and digital projection. To keep things running smoothly, members should have their images in a format and size that is compatible with our current digital projection equipment. Basically, the format should be in JPEG (JPG) and the image pixel dimension should be approximately 1280 X 853 with a DPI (Dots per inch) of 72. Brad Denoon has provided us with an excellent guideline: Resizing images in Photoshop. Although the example uses Photoshop as an application, you will find that most applications use similar methods and the end product will be the same. | Photography Equipment For Sale Nikon F90x with a free Tamrom 90 F2.5Macro MF....$ 150.00 Nikon 24mm F2.8AF .............................................$ 150.00 Nikon 300 F4.5 IFED,MF .......................................$ 150.00 Tamrom 200-400 F5.6AFD .....................................$ 400.00 For more information please call Darren Colp 613-966-3315 or email darrin.colp000@sympatico.ca |
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Attention : Photo-Nat Members Cheryl Clement of CS Picture Framing & Digital Imaging has sweetened their deal to the Photo-Nat members. Cheryl has offered: 1st time coming in - and getting something done - 25% off on the first order & after that it would be 15% off up to a year. For further details of CS Picture Framing & Digital Imaging, please visit their web site at http://www.cspictureframing.com |
DOUGLAS BANKS Photographic Equipment Repairs
based out of Amherstview, Ontario, Canada.
Our mailing address is:
Monday ~ Friday 8:00 - 5:00 |
